Quote of the week . . . “The best thing to spend on your children is your time.” —CC—

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The Coronavirus has affected everyone in one way or another. One of the unseen victims of the virus is the American Farmer . . .

The Unseen Victim of Coronavirus: The American Farmer

“For generations, domestic agriculture has been the foundation of our food-secure nation. It is said American farmers feed the world, and food and agricultural commodities are our nation’s largest exports. This level of food security has meant that for millions of Americans, the sight of empty grocery shelves was unheard of until the panic caused by the coronavirus. Supply chains struggled to stock grocery store shelves, and the cost of everything from flour to hamburgers increased overnight. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which tracks the prices of consumer goods, food consumed at home increased 2.6% in the month of April, five times larger than any monthly increase in the previous year. Even as prices were rising, however, the meager share farmers were receiving, 8 cents for every dollar spent on food in 2018, decreased further, and thousands of farms across the country declared bankruptcy as commodity prices couldn’t cover operating costs. Why are food prices increasing but domestic farmers facing record bankruptcies?

Unfortunately, the answer is complicated. In some cases, American farmers can’t compete with imported foodstuffs that are cheaper than domestic crops. In other cases, activist groups pretending to protect consumers are suing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to prevent the use of lowcost farm inputs that reduce farmers’ overhead. Most recently, federal agencies are investigating accusations of meat packers colluding to keep farmers’ prices low despite increased demand, which should lead to higher prices. Ad in a global pandemic, and these issues create a recipe for disaster for farmers across the country.

Americans in recent decades have wanted fruits and vegetables year-round, something impossible to deliver when plants only produce one harvest in most of the northern hemisphere each year. Bowing to this demand, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) allowed more imports from countries with different harvest timelines, but the lower costs for foreign producers created price competition with domestic growers. According to the USDA’s Economic Research Service, imports of fresh fruit grew from 23% in 1975 to 53.1% in 2016. As foreign fruit entered the market at lower costs, domestic growers turned to the food service market—schools, restaurants, entertainment venues—to sell their produce. Then, state-ordered mandatory business and school closures across the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic caused demand to disappear overnight. Farmers in southern Florida and California, normally fortunate enough to have winter growing seasons, were forced to leave millions of dollars’ worth of produce to rot. An industry already suffering from cracks caused by unfair foreign competition was suddenly ground to a halt by an unforeseen pandemic.

While it is easy to blame cheap foreign products, some of the blame can also be pointed at actors inside the United States. In May 2020, the liberal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the activist organization Center for Food Safety to overturn the EPA’s approval of a popular weed control product set to be used on millions of acres of already planted crops. With their hands tied after using the weed prevention measures, they needed, farmers across the Midwest and South are facing millions of lost bushels of corn, soybeans, and other crops come harvest season. This shortage of row crops used as feed for cattle, hogs, and chickens will increase input costs for the already hurting meat, dairy, and egg industries.

In June, the Department of Justice began investigating the four largest meat-packing companies for anti-trust violations. Prior to the pandemic, cattle producers were receiving some of the lowest prices in 20 years. When consumers started emptying meat coolers, the price of beef sold to grocery stores jumped nearly 20%, but the price paid to cattle farmers inexplicably dropped to 11%. Farmers immediately where four companies, some of whom are foreign-owned, control 80% of the beef sold to grocery stores, must be colluding to lower the price paid to farmers.

To add insult to injury, the conditions in slaughterhouses quickly allowed for the spread of coronavirus, forcing temporary plant closures. Suddenly, farmers had nowhere to sell their animals, which continue to eat and grow, and processors refuse overweight livestock. With no other option, producers have had to do the unthinkable; euthanize the very animals they have spent months caring for. Farmers understand they are tasked with raising animals meant to become someone’s meal, an ending with a purpose, but to waste the life of an animal they cared for can damage the psyches of people already stressed by the poor economics of their profession. Before the pandemic,

Before the pandemic, the suicide rate among farmers was double that of the general population, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Since the beginning of the pandemic, farm bankruptcies have increased 23% compared to last year, based on data from the US court system. Add in the fact that the average age of the American farmer is 58, and it’s clear that rising bankruptcies endanger the future of a group with little chance of training for a new profession.

The statistics showed cracks were forming in farming before the pandemic, and now the coronavirus has made clear the cracks are coming from source: Those outside agriculture demanding changes they don’t understand. Believe it or not, the solution to this problem was proposed by President John f. Kennedy in 1958:

“What, after all, does the farmer want? Nothing more than an opportunity to share equally in an expanding economy of abundance— an opportunity to market his produce at a fair price, protected from extreme economic fluctuations—a chance to live out his life on his farm with some degree of security.

The farmer is, after all, the only man in our economy who must buy everything he buys at retail—sell everything he sells at wholesale—and pay the freight both ways.:

JFK called for returning control of farming to the farmer more than 60 years ago. It is time for Washington, DC, to do just that by reducing outside influence on agricultural prices and practices and letting American farmers do what they do best: continue to feed the world.

Newsmax

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And speaking of farmers . . .One of our subscribers passed on the following article, which we really enjoyed:

Farmers Last Will & Testament

TO MY WIFE, my overdraft at the bank— maybe she can explain it.

TO MY BANKER, my soul—he has the mortgage on it anyway.

TO MY NEIGHBOR, my clown suit—he’ll need it if he continues to farm as he has in the past.

TO THE ASCS, MY GRAIN BIN—I was planning to let them take it next year anyway.

TO THE COUNTY AGENT, 50 bushels of corn to see if he can hit the market—I never could.

TO THE JUNK MAN, all my machinery— he’s had his eye on it for years.

T O M Y UNDERTAKER, a special request—I want six implement and fertilizer dealers for my pallbearers. They are used to carrying me.

T O T H E WEATHERMAN, rain and sleet and snow for the funeral, please—no sense in having good weather now.

TO THE GRAVE DIGGER—don’t bother. The hole I’m in should be big enough.

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